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Why or how isn't relevant. All that matters is that it is. It was. No, Jinsol. Focus on the now.
Focus on the now.
Jinsol drums her fingers against the steering wheel. Focus on the now. She's crying and she can't stop. Can't focus.
She feels as if she's falling backwards in time. Her car is moving forwards but her mind is going in reverse. Focus on the now.
A tear hits her thighs through a rip in her jeans.
~*~
Jinsol and Sooyoung dated once before. They met at a party when Sooyoung was still drunk, carefree and uninhibited and saw Jinsol in her denim jacket and ripped jeans and thought "I want that to be mine"
At least that's how she bluntly told Jinsol when she later recalled that night. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Jinsol and Sooyoung dated once before, when Sooyoung sauntered up to Jinsol with a purpose and said. "Why don't I know you?" Jinsol had smiled a tipsy smile at this beautiful creature before her with a first love smile and stars in her eyes and so Jinsol played along.
Jinsol and Sooyoung. Sol and Soo. Tom and Jerry. Cat and mouse. Sun and Moon. Who could tell the difference?
Nonetheless they had a fling. They were too young then. High schoolers deciding that this was it. Infinity packed into one summer. Because Jinsol looked too beautiful under the moonlight, it glows with her. So when the moon tells Sooyoung to kiss this wonderful girl under the moonlight while they were swimming (trespassing) in a rich neighbor's pool at midnight, who was Sooyoung to refuse.
"You're beautiful." Jinsol had said the first time after they parted from the kiss. Because, Sooyoung has stars in her eyes and Jinsol likes counting them after they kissed. Because, Sooyoung has a first love smile and it would be a damn shame if Jinsol wouldn't fall in love with her.
Sooyoung threw her head back and laughed. "I know." She said. It was funny. Sooyoung feels like a riot and Jinsol wants to take her home.
It feels like the garden of Eden, biting into each other like forbidden fruit, throwing pebbles on windows and sneaking out the window sill when the night is done. Giggling girls who forgot who they were in the halls and just knew they wanted each other. That summer was magic, with Sooyoung, Jinsol couldn't deny that.
Perhaps it was magic because Sooyoung was loyal. Even in shorts and tank tops hanging out in the car of some boy Jinsol didn't bother knowing, Sooyoung looked at Jinsol as if she was all she could see. As if Jinsol is everything she wanted and more. She dodged kisses and only hung around him to smoke, the cigarette on Sooyoung's lips made her even more dangerous in Jinsol's eyes. Still, Jinsol wanted Sooyoung, carefree, heartbreaker Sooyoung that was unobtainable for anyone other than Jinsol. Sooyoung was free, dangerous and wild and no one will dare tame her spirit. Only Jinsol was allowed to touch her.
It gave her butterflies. The good kind and the bad kind. And it sent shivers down her spine.
Or perhaps it was magic because Jinsol's parents were never home so she tried to make Sooyoung bigger than what she is and Jinsol made her home. "You're my dream girl." Sooyoung wrote in a letter, signed it "your love, Sooyoung" and Jinsol taped it to her mirror as a reminder. She was in Sooyoung's every moment, awake or asleep, Jinsol was Sooyoung's.
It was a fairytale that was too beautiful last.
So it didn't.
~*~
Jinsol pulls over now. Shaking with the weight of her memory. She feels the past pulsing through her veins, thrumming with all those nights sparkling in the back of her mind, still covered in glitter.
Her body convulses in sobs. A possession of the past.
How badly she wished that summer fever would break. How hard they crashed when the heat wave was over.
And how Jinsol's heart had shivered in the cold, outside, all alone.
~*~
Sooyoung had been loyal, yes. No one could deny that. Every hickey on her body was accounted for, every name falling from her lips was "Sol". It feels like they could last in wonderland after all and Jinsol had no desire to make it back home.
But then it was August. And they were going to different schools. And this year was the hardest. And Sooyoung would not, could not pick up Jinsol's calls. After excuses. After excuses. Empty words taking up so much space that whatever feelings remain, killing it much like a bacteria in the immune system. It was hard to keep it alive.
They met at a beach once.
Sooyoung was standing with her feet in the ocean, face towards the fading sun and the rising moon and she looked just as beautiful as the day she left Jinsol. Jinsol had walked behind her, debating whether or not to slip her hand on Sooyoung's waist. How quickly their whirlwind turned still and unsure.
"Hi Soo." Jinsol said and Sooyoung turned to her with a smile.
"Hey Sol." She said and everything seemed fine. They walked back to Jinsol's car in the parking lot and watched the waves crash and the clouds roll by for seven minutes before speaking.
Then Sooyoung, "I hope this gives you some closure."
Jinsol, mind blank. Jaw slack. "Huh?"
Sooyoung looking half apologetic, half sheepish. "We had fun. We had so much fun together."
"Fun?" Jinsol repeated dumbly. Sooyoung nods.
"It was fun, Sol but it's time to wake up."
"I didn't realize this was just a dream." Jinsol could feel the sarcasm dripping from her voice. Anger curdling inside her like spoiled milk. Their summer, freezing over her memory.
Sooyoung shrugs. "It's called dream girl for a reason."
Inexplicably, Sooyoung reached for her face and Jinsol leaned in, when Sooyoung placed her hand on her chin, Jinsol tilted her head, when Sooyoung kissed her, Jinsol let it happen.
"Thanks for everything, okay?" Sooyoung said one last time before kissing her forehead and unlocking the car door.
Their last kiss tasted like sour apples and Jinsol's lips feels rotten and bruised for weeks after Sooyoung got out of the car and walked away.
~*~
Sooyoung had been loyal until she wanted someone else and then she was no longer anybody else's but her own.
Jinsol felt some respect for her. Some admiration for the girl who swept her off into a storybook and closed the chapter when she decided she was done. It was selfish, almost disgustingly selfish, but it was something Jinsol herself could never do. She was always too soft, the doormat, while Sooyoung was the shoe stepping on her, letting her in. But at least, Sooyoung let Jinsol stand on her feet when she was too afraid to dance and Sooyoung led her through it.
To Jinsol, it made no sense and all the sense in the world.
But this was the real world and it was time for Jinsol to wake up. She took down the note but it didn't go very far. Wistfully, ashamedly, she tucked the remnant of that summer and Sooyoung under her pillow like a wish. An offering for the tooth fairy. Like asking for a reward of something she had outgrown. Sooyoung was just a baby tooth that was in the way of Jinsol's permanent.
It was a nice thought, in her dreams it was true. In her dreams tho, there was still Sooyoung.
~*~
On the side of the road is a car with chipping blue paint. The car beams off it in all directions. Inside there is a weeping girl, bent over the steering wheel, like a tree struck by lightning and shattered in the trunk. Her cries are muffled by the glass windows but there's a sadness in the stillness in the streets.
Two blocks away, the cause of her pain is following up the sidewalk.
Cat and mouse. Sun and moon. Sol y Luna. There is no escape from mother nature nor fate nor the unbearable eclipse.
~*~
Jinsol grew eventually. Hesitantly, she shook off the memory of the summer and she met someone else. Her name was Kim Jungeun and she makes Jinsol laugh and they hang out sometimes.
Besides that, there was nothing remarkable with their memories together. Jinsol's memories with her were flat in her mind. Nothing glossy. Nothing shiny. Nothing iridescent. It was a dull wallpaper of insignificance compared to her summer with Sooyoung.
One day, Jungeun offhandedly mentioned she's going out on a date while on the phone with Jinsol and said his name was Yoon Sehun. It was an odd occurrence because nothing happened. Her heart didn't pinch or clench or even miss a beat. She forgot she even had a heart.
"Have fun." She said and Jungeun hung up and never spoke to Jinsol again. She later realized that there was no guy named Yoon Sehun and that she had failed a test. Which is weird because Jinsol does not fail tests. At least academically speaking.
In retrospect, she was an asshole. But there was nothing she could do to make herself feel that what was not there.
She understood Sooyoung more as time went on. Somehow she still lives in Jinsol's moments, waking or sleeping, as if she never left. As if she were a ghost, hovering behind her. It occurred to Jinsol that she might have once been in love with Sooyoung in that one summer.
She vowed never to think of that again.
~*~
Her vow was intact the rest of the year. Jinsol thought she had survived. She went to the dance with some random boy, took him home and did not think of Sooyoung. Did not think of Sooyoung. Refused to think of Sooyoung.
Everyday the girl from that one summer was a distant echo getting quieter and quieter.
And then she went to a party and Sooyoung was there and the memory came booming in her ears. And, God. Why couldn't Sooyoung give her peace. Jinsol knows, of course. Girls like Sooyoung do not give you peace, they give you adventure. Wild, carefree and Sooyoung. The girl from that one summer.
Sooyoung was not drunk unlike the last time and her lips were pretty and pink not dark like the last time. This time, she snuck up behind Jinsol like a ninja aiming to steal Jinsol's heart and said. "Don't I know you?" with a sly smile and Jinsol could feel her knees go weak.
"Hi, Soo." She said, unevenly as she could muster.
"Sol." Sooyoung said almost shyly. Almost as if she didn't get the response she wanted and is now spooked and unprepared for this conversation. "Long time no see huh?"
"Didn't you want it that way?" Jinsol heard herself say. Taken aback by the bite in her tone.
Hurt flashed in Sooyoung's eyes, quickly followed by embarrassment. "Sorry about that." She said. "I should go, forget this happened."
"No." Jinsol heard herself say again. She had no control over her mouth. "I didn't mean it that way. I just meant like you kinda were the one who broke it off. Like you did that. Not me."
I wouldn't. I could never. I never wanted to wake up from that hazy summer dream. I never wanted to wake up from you, Sooyoung. Jinsol yearned to say.
A year later and she had still not gotten any closure.
Sooyoung's lips pursed uncomfortably. "Do you want to go for a walk with me?"
They went for a walk.
Jinsol watched Sooyoung stretch her legs across the sidewalk and considered how she had grown. She had filled out her figure. She now had a silver ring in her nose piercing. She had cut her hair and it was brown. She was the same torturously beautiful person Jinsol knew, just evolved.
How could Sooyoung be here, be there, looking that beautiful and not belong to Jinsol anymore.
It gave her butterflies and she hated every second of it.
"So, I feel like I owe you an explanation." Sooyoung started, yanking Jinsol from her thoughts.
"What's there to explain, Soo?" Jinsol asked almost bitterly. "We spent the whole summer together and when school started you decided we were done. We're different people now. It doesn't matter anymore."
Sooyoung waved Jinsol's words away. "I hear the hurt in your voice and I'm sorry but please let me explain." She started. Then paused. "Well, I guess you got everything right."
Jinsol stopped in her tracks and looked at Sooyoung in the face. She didn't know this person and yet she still somehow ache to be with her, to hear her voice, to hold her because it was still Sooyoung.
"Just like, I don't know. That summer was crazy. I was being someone I wasn't when I was with you. I forgot who I was when I was with you. And I couldn't balance between those two when school started again. Do you get what I mean?" Sooyoung asked hesitantly.
"So it was all a lie?"
"No, not at all." Sooyoung hastily corrected. "But it was different for me. I was different when I was with you. And it scared me. The intensity of it all was like insane for me. And I know you know it's the same for you too."
Jinsol nodded. "Yeah, it was." It still hurts. She yearned to say. You're still everywhere I look and I hate you for it.
Sooyoung looked at Jinsol almost sadly. "I heard you met someone after me. How'd that work out for you?"
"I'm not talking about that." Jinsol laughs harshly because the ache comes and it's hard enough for her to breathe much less to be around this Sooyoung "I don't know why you would even ask."
"Sorry." Sooyoung fumbled. "I'm stupid. I'm sorry. It's none of my business."
"No, it's not." Jinsol answered flatly. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to leave Sooyoung alone in this sidewalk and drive home.
Sooyoung was staring down at her air force 1 in deep thought. "Well, in case you were wondering. I'm single. My number's still the same."
Jinsol didn't even have time to react before Sooyoung was turning on her heel and walking away.
~*~
She didn't want to call her.
She hated the idea of calling her. The neediness of it, the stupidness of it, the admittance that a year later she was still hung up on the girl who kissed her pools under the moonlight and blow smoke into her mouth under the fading sunlight. The girl who sung her to sleep. The girl who leaves roses on her windowsill and tapes notes on her mirror signed as "your love".
Jinsol called her.
Sooyoung snuck into her window in the dead of the night, finds her place in between Jinsol's arms as if she had never left. As if she were a lost lego piece, Jinsol spent the entire year looking for and had found its way back home, clicking back into place, exactly where it belonged.
Sooyoung still has stars in her eyes and Jinsol counts them, closing her eyes just before Sooyoung kisses her. Sooyoung has stars in her eyes and Jinsol wished on them that Sooyoung would stay.
~*~
Focus on the now.
Focus, Sol.
Start the car back up. You can do this. Drive.
Jinsol wants so desperately to leave behind everything that had happened. To focus on what is, not what was. She knows Sooyoung is behind her and that if she keeps driving she will not catch up.
Her mind keeps falling back.
~*~
After that night, Jinsol woke to Sooyoung sitting at the foot of her bed. In Jinsol's university hoodie and old sweatpants that doesn't do her beauty any justice. In her hands was a piece of paper.
Jinsol's heart stopped when she realized what it was. Sooyoung followed her gaze and lifted the letter, gesturing to Jinsol with it.
"You kept it. After all this time." Sooyoung said, matter of factly. Her voice sounds like sunrise. The morning sun fell through the window and hits Sooyoung's eyes, lighting up the room that early July in a way that slowed Jinsol's brain.
It occurred to her that she never expected Sooyoung to stay. Because there's the morning sun rising and Sooyoung was the kind of girl who would drive an hour to the beach to watch the sunset but would never stay with you until the sunrise. She's like the moon, with the shadows and the dark side that nobody sees makes her all the more beautiful.
"I did?" She said, more of a question than intended. Sooyoung half smiles.
"You did. Under your pillow." Jinsol nods in acknowledgement.
Sooyoung kept smiling her first love smile and Jinsol wonders if it's too late not to fall in love with her.
~*~
It was like that summer all over again but not.
They kept hooking up. Sooyoung sneaking in the dead of the night, their bodies fitting together as if they had never known distance, and sneaking out before the sun comes up.
But when the sun rose, they were strangers. Jinsol would roll over to an empty bed and crumpled sheets and no Sooyoung. She would get out of bed and drive to school as if nothing had happened. As if her heart was not disintegrating like a piece of paper left in the rain.
It was like clockwork. Day, Jinsol. Night, Sooyoung. Sun and Moon. Sol y Luna. Routine and repeat.
Until one night Sooyoung came over and in the dim light, the silhouette of a bruise on her neck caught Jinsol's eye.
Jinsol's hand slowed when she pulled in Sooyoung by the collar of her school uniform. Her body felt two sizes too small.
"What's this?" She whispered, a secret in the dead of the night, voice too small as if afraid of breaking something that's already broken. Jinsol knows what it is.
Sooyoung shook her head. Bun loosening at the back of her neck. Her eyes low, refusing to meet Jinsol's. Shook her head no again.
Jinsol yanked the shirt off in one motion, throwing it to the side angrily. "Answer me."
"Sol—" Sooyoung started, moving to cover the hickey, face burning in shame, "it's nothing. Please."
"You're seeing someone else?" Jinsol gripped Sooyoung's wrist and pulled them from Sooyoung's offending neck. Watched as Sooyoung's face flushed, the purple spot seemingly growing darker and larger by the second. "I didn't put that there. I know what the fuck that is."
"Stop." Sooyoung hissed. "Just stop, Sol. You don't own me and I don't own you. Don't make it bigger than what it is. We're not together." She climbed off the bed and moved to grab her shirt. Jinsol grabbed it before Sooyoung could get to it.
"You could've at least told me." Jinsol's voice was dangerously loud in the silent house, with her sister Chaewon sleeping feet away in the next room. "Why would you let me think I was the only one?"
Sooyoung's mouth twisted in a snarl. "You've got to be kidding me. She started. Her chest was rising and falling furiously. She looked wild and seething with rage. And beautiful. Always so beautiful. Jinsol could've slapped her across the face then.
Fuck you. Fuck you for making me love you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Jinsol wants to say.
"We don't even fucking talk, Sol. I come here. We fool around. I leave. You never ask for anything more so I don't need to give it."
Jinsol's fists clenched as she opened her mouth for a rebuttal but Sooyoung wasn't finished.
"For all I know, you could have a boyfriend I don't know about. You could go on a date before I come over." Sooyoung's eyes shone in the moonlight. Maybe this whole time she was nothing more than a ghost. An imposter of the girl Jinsol was in love with. "I don't owe you anything."
That struck a cord. Jinsol's heart hammered in her chest as she reached under her pillow, crumpled the piece of paper in her fist, hurling it at Sooyoung's chest.
"Take this then! And get the fuck out!" Jinsol nearly screamed as the ball hit Sooyoung just below her collarbone. "I don't know why I fucking held on to the idea of you."
Something snapped behind Sooyoung's eyes. Her face went blank and eerily calm.
"That's the problem, Sol. You're holding on to an idea of me when I told you that wasn't me." Sooyoung said slowly. "You're not perfect either. You hated how easily I moved on but you hated yourself more because you couldn't."
"You don't know me." Jinsol spat. "You're not fucking special, Soo. Anyone could do what you do."
Sooyoung smiled, lips like the devil. God, how Jinsol wanted her still. "Sure, anyone can do what I do. But no one else does. Because you don't want just anyone, Sol. You want me."
And with that, she reaches for Jinsol by the waist and her hand cupping Jinsol's cheeks, eyes boring a hole through her soul.
"Tell me you don't want this." Sooyoung whispered, their foreheads touching, lips a breath apart, Jinsol might just as well handed Sooyoung her heart. "Tell me you don't want me and I'll leave you alone."
"I hate you." Jinsol says before leaning in. Sooyoung laughs through the kiss.
"I know." Sooyoung says. It was funny. She is still the entire riot and Jinsol still think she's home.
~*~
That morning, as the sun rose, Jinsol turned to her side lazily and jumped when she met Sooyoung's eyes staring at her.
"Hi" Sooyoung mumbled, trying to hide her morning breath. "You look so pretty."
She didn't want to blush but she blushed anyway. Jinsol buried her face in the pillow as Sooyoung lifts a hand to trace Jinsol's spine, fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake, reveling in the power her hand has over her.
Jinsol was still drifting in and out of sleep when she heard Sooyoung speak again her voice far away, belonging in her dreams.
"I'm sorry about last night." She whispered. "I think it came out all wrong."
Sooyoung shifted under the sheets, lifting Jinsol's to cuddle her against Sooyoung's heartbeat. Jinsol ached for another universe where this movement meant something more. That Sooyoung was telling her this is something more, that Sooyoung's heart belonged to hers as easy as Jinsol's belonged to her. That Sooyoung's heartbeat was to the beat of Jinsol's name. Where Sooyoung was herself but different, better, hers. Jinsol feel the tears before they fell.
"Hey" Sooyoung said, concern crinkling the corners of her eyes. "What's wrong?"
Jinsol shook her head. There was so much she wanted to say but all of it was wrong.
"I really care about you, Sol. I'm trying to learn how to show it."
Tears fell on Sooyoung's collarbone and it oozed down Jinsol's lips. She felt ugly and beautiful, warm and wounded, complete and not enough all at once. It occurred to Jinsol once again that she maybe in love.
All she could do was hold on tight to Sooyoung's shoulders. It was daytime, the sun is up and there's no moon to reflect the stars in Sooyoung's eyes and Jinsol can't wish on them for Sooyoung to stay.
Jinsol wept for what once was and what may never be.
~*~
Jinsol cries like this now. gripping the steering wheel like she once gripped Sooyoung, like she once gripped dreams of their future. A future that was bright and full of summer, a future that never turned sour, a fairytale that never closed and turned into a dirty little secret. A future where Sooyoung is the Sooyoung she was supposed to be.
Or at least the Sooyoung that Jinsol wanted her to be.
It felt as if those dreams slipped through her fingers more and more as she held on tighter.
It is a hard lesson to learn, that you cannot make someone something they're not. A rose is a rose. Plucking its petals, getting rid of its thorns and planting it in a field of daisies does not make it any less of a rose.
Behind her, Sooyoung stumbles up the street, buckling at the knees.
And how beautiful a rose is when it wilts, still.
~*~
The next night Sooyoung snuck through Jinsol's window, there were no marks in her body.
She wore a baggy sweatshirt, comfy sweatpants and her hair was in a loose ponytail. She let her shoes slip off her feet and tucked them under Jinsol's window. She was admiring the moon and Jinsol was admiring the way Sooyoung looked under the moon.
I love you. Jinsol thought. I love you in a way that makes me want to light myself on fire just so you would find your way to me in the dark. I hate you for it. I wish you never found me but I badly wish you would stay. I badly wish you would stay.
Jinsol slid her hand around Sooyoung's waist and laid her head on Sooyoung's shoulder. Her lips brushed against Sooyoung's ear but she didn't kiss it. There was something sacred about this but Jinsol didn't know what.
They swayed under the starry night sky, did not kiss, did not touch. They held each other close and fell asleep with their clothes on. Lovers who made love not with their bodies but their souls.
It was the last peaceful night they would have.
~*~
The next day, Jungeun approached Jinsol in the hallway, cornering her in between classes as the student body swarmed around them.
"Hey." She said, smiling her pretty smile. Jinsol blinked in response. "So you're with Ha Sooyoung now?"
Jinsol gulped. "What?"
"I saw her drop you off this morning. I recognize her car." Jungeun considered her words, tilting her head slightly and frowning. "She picks up my friend, Jiwoo, all the time."
The floor dropped from under Jinsol's feet. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Jungeun laughed awkwardly. "Oh sorry. I didn't know she was cheating on you. I guess she was pretty subtle then. I'm sorry, Jinsol."
"She's not cheating." Jinsol said through gritted teeth. Her head spun. We're not together. She wanted to say but she can't. The words are stuck in the roof of her mouth like glue, refusing to be spat out.
"So you have like an open relationship? Like we had?" Jungeun says, eyes vengeful and knowing.
Jinsol swallowed the boulder in her throat. "No." It bobbed back up. They're not together. The most she got from Sooyoung was "I care about you, Sol." Sooyoung's "I don't owe you anything was mocking her, laughing at her, ringing in her ears. Jungeun feigned a confused expression.
"Oh. I'd be careful with her. Sounds like a heartbreaker." Jinsol watched Jungeun walk away.
Jinsol wanted to say that Sooyoung was not a heartbreaker that breaking hearts was not Sooyoung's thing but Jinsol's heart was breaking and it was because of Sooyoung.
~*~
Jinsol drove to the beach.
She partly expected Sooyoung to be there, sitting on the sand with whoever the fuck Jiwoo was, holding her hand. Maybe they were having a picnic. Or maybe they were swimming in the ocean together, splashing in the water like little kids. Like they were in love.
Because, Jinsol is not the kind of girl you take on picnics, not the kind you drive an hour and half away to the beach just to watch the sunset, not the kind of girl you take swimming on the ocean or splash water. Jinsol is not the kind of girl you fall in love with in open spaces.
She's the girl you love in boxes, in tiny cramped up rooms with only the moon as light. She's the girl you love in four walled rooms when you kiss in the dark. The kind of girl you love only when the moon is up.
But the sand was just sand. And Sooyoung loving another person was just a figment of her imagination.
Jinsol drove to her house.
She didn't cry. She didn't honk or text or call her. She didn't know what she was expecting. What she was waiting for. Sooyoung wasn't going to come outside on her own. Jinsol lifted a hand to twist the key in the ignition when she heard it.
"Sol?"
Sooyoung, from her upstairs window. Looking down at Jinsol's car with confusion in her face.
She suddenly couldn't do it. She couldn't ask her if it was true, couldn't face the fact that she loved this girl more than summer itself, couldn't ask her if she felt the same. Tears burned her eyes, hot and thick and blurring her vision.
"What are you doing here baby?" Sooyoung called down.
A crack went straight through Jinsol's heart. The tears spilled over onto her cheeks and she shook her head. No. No.
Jinsol turned the car on, shaking. Pressing on the gas pedal. Sooyoung's voice grew high pitched and nervous.
"Wait!" She said and disappeared from the window and Jinsol could picture her racing down the stairs, chasing after her.
Her foot pressed harder and the tears kept coming. I love you I hate that I do. I love you and I've always loved you but this just won't work.
She was at the end of the street when the sound of Sooyoung's shoes hitting the pavement met her ears. "Sol what the hell?"
Just keep driving.
The sun hit Jinsol right in the eyes. Everything was making it impossible to see. Tears blurred the bright lights in her eyes and flashbacks filtered in her eyes.
Everything they experienced together none of it making any sense.
Could she ever love Sooyoung the right way? She always seemed to love the idea of her more. And Sooyoung, seemed so haunted by the version of herself that only existed in Jinsol's dreams. No matter how tall she stood. She always fell short. She had outdone herself that summer. Maybe Jinsol had fallen in love with someone else. The letter Sooyoung had written looked like somebody else's handwriting. Her kisses no longer graced Jinsol's lips alone. Their summer, soiled by the snow of winter and the mess that is their lives. They hated hiding but both chose to keep each other in secret.
Can you be in love and ashamed at the same time?
Everything they experienced, none of it making sense.
Jinsol kept driving. Focus on the now. Sooyoung kept running up the street. She didn't know which Sooyoung it was. She didn't know which one she wanted.
Focus on the now.
I wish I met you in another life, she thought. I wish I met you at a different time.
"Sol. Stop. Please."
And how Jinsol ached.
~*~
Two weeks after they met at the party, Sooyoung and Jinsol laid in the grass under Jinsol's window, dizzy under the vast sky full of dreams and stars.
"You really love them." Sooyoung says, amused looking at Jinsol citing the constellations one by one. Jinsol looks at her.
"I do." Jinsol nods, noting the twinkle in Sooyoung's eyes.
"It makes sense you know. Your name, Sol. The sun, the stars and how much you love them." Sooyoung chuckles as if she just unlocked the most guarded secret in the universe. When she noticed Jinsol hasn't said anything she turns to look at her.
"You have stars in your eyes, Sooyoung." Jinsol smiles, touching gently the side of Sooyoung's face.
"I have stars in my eyes because I'm looking at you." She said and looked away. "We're going to end up as one them, one day, do you know that?"
Jinsol turned her head, blades of grass tickling her cheek. Sooyoung's profile was illuminated by the porch light. She was pointing at the stars but Jinsol was looking at her eyes. That was the first time Jinsol wished on Sooyoung's eyes, for the holder of that unknown universe to stay.
"I hope I'm next to you, Soo." She said.
And Sooyoung smiled. "I know."
That night two weeks after they met was the only thing that made sense. As easily as; The moon. The stars. And how much Jinsol loved Sooyoung.
~*~
Jinsol fell in love with Sooyoung. It didn't take much. It didn't take long. But the how or why isn't relevant. All that matters is that it is. It was. No, Jinsol. Focus on the now.
Focus on the now.
Jinsol drums her fingers against the steering wheel. Focus on the now. She's crying and she can't stop. Can't focus.
She feels as if she's falling backwards in time. Her car is moving forwards but her mind is going in reverse. Focus on the now.
A tear hits her thighs through a rip in her jeans.
Sooyoung is still behind her. She is still driving. Nothing is making sense and nothing is stopping the sea of tears from falling.
She can't think straight. She wants Sooyoung but the Sooyoung that she has is not good enough. She doesn't know who is to blame for this. Is it Sooyoung's fault for not being the best version that Jinsol had? Or is Jinsol in love with an idealization, a fantasy, a version of Sooyoung that is bigger than what she actually is as a person.
Jinsol pulls over now. Shaking with the weight of her memory. She feels the past pulsing through her veins, thrumming with all those nights sparkling in the back of her mind, still covered in glitter.
Her body convulses in sobs. A possession of the past.
How badly she wished that summer fever would break. How hard they crashed when the heat wave was over.
And how Jinsol's heart had shivered in the cold, outside, all alone.
She is two blocks away from Sooyoung's house but Sooyoung is still following her.
Maybe this means Sooyoung loves her. Maybe this means she wants it to work.
Or maybe Sooyoung is coming to say she never wants to see Jinsol again because she met someone named Jiwoo.
On the side of the road is a car with chipping blue paint. The car beams off it in all directions. Inside there is a weeping girl, bent over the steering wheel, like a tree struck by lightning and shattered in the trunk. Her cries are muffled by the glass windows but there's a sadness in the stillness in the streets.
Two blocks away, the cause of her pain is following up the sidewalk.
Cat and mouse. Sun and moon. Sol y Luna. There is no escape from mother nature nor fate nor the unbearable eclipse.
Focus on the now.
Focus, Sol.
Start the car back up. You can do this. Drive.
Jinsol wants so desperately to leave behind everything that had happened. To focus on what is, not what was. She knows Sooyoung is behind her and that if she keeps driving she will not catch up.
The sound of Sooyoung's shoes on the pavement jerks Jinsol from her thoughts. She suddenly feels cornered.
To admit defeat or to drive away? She doesn't know which way is the worse way to lose.
Jinsol watches Sooyoung come closer in her rear window. She is forever beautiful. Always in a different way, but always beautiful.
Sooyoung catches her eyes in the mirror. She goes still. Her chest rises and falls as she pants, struggling to catch her breath.
"Baby?" She says.
It is a hard lesson to learn, that you cannot make someone something they're not. A rose is a rose. Plucking its petals, getting rid of its thorns and planting it in a field of daisies does not make it any less of a rose.
I love you. Jinsol thinks. I have loved you and I have hated you and I have wanted you so bad I burned myself. I lit myself on fire just so you would stay.
But it is time for me to let you go and let you be someone else's rose.